Indian Chronology (Solar, Lunar and Planetary): A Practical Guide to the Interpretation and Verification of Tithis, Nakshatras, Horoscopes and other Indian Time-records, B.C. 1 to A.D. 2000 c10.11

c10.11

23. The solar year K.Y. 5011, A.D. 1910, which is a normal year, opens, as every year does, with the *Mesha Sankrânti* or entrance of the sun into the Indian *first point of Aries*, from which our celestial longitudes are reckoned. We have already seen how this moment is determined, namely, by the successive addition of 365·25875 days since the first moment of the year 0 *Kaliyuga*, less the *sodhya* of 2·1707 days. The *Mesha Sankrânti* determines all kinds of solar years in use in India, and it also determines directly the lunar year, since the first lunar month *Chaitra* is defined to be that whose commencement precedes the *Mesha Sankrânti* and the first day of the lunar year is that on which *Chaitra Sukla Pratipadâ* or the first tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra was current at sunrise. In our scheme of months in Table X and elsewhere the reader will observe that the lunar month *Chaitra* stands last, but this is only for purposes of computation, and, after all, the lunar month *Chaitra* begins in a previous solar year, and so it stands last among the lunar months of that year.